Ben Burkart

Level Designer/Level Artist

Professional Work

Ark Survival Evolved (January 2016 - Present)

My work on Ark started out on with a modded level called "The Center".
The level quickly became very popular with the community and the map was bought by Studio
WildCard and I was hired on full time to continue working on the map. From start to completion
I have been responsible for 100% of the development of this map, from the initial layouts, optimizing,
AI spawning, visual passes, level scripting and working closely with community members to ensure the level
was as polished as possible!

Toxikk

In all I was responsible for the development of three different maps
in Toxikk. One was a map that I had originally made for Unreal Tournament 3 that I gave the rights
over for and the other two were maps I created based on previous made layouts from Unreal Tournament 3.
Along with the map Citadel in the video above I was also heavily responsible for the maps Castello, and Ehrgeiz

Guardians of Valor (August 2014 - August 2015)

As the only level designer on the project I was responsible for creating all of the levels and
setting up all level scripting/gameplay as well as a lot of the optimization, shader creation, and
helping with a lot of the 3D art.

Dungeon Defenders 2 (July 2012 - May 2014)

As the Lead Level Designer I was responsible for overseeing the overall quality of all of the levels
that went into the game. Not only did I work directly with the level designers to ensure the levels played
at their absolute best
but I was also responsible for working closely with the leads of all departments to ensure that everything
from gameplay, performance, visuals, testing, and finalizing
were completed at the utmost quality. On top of my role as Lead Level Designer I was also heavily responsible
for the overall looks of the levels
handeling a lot of the finalizing of the art/lighting passes for levels and helping push them the extra final
10% to completion in a lot of cases.

Dungeon Defenders 1 (February 2010 - July 2012)

As one of two Level Designers working on Dungeon Defenders I was responsible for designing the levels from scratch, fixing them up visually using
assets made by the artists, polishing, and optimizing the levels.

Damnation (October 2008 - May 2009)

My responsibility on Damnation was mostly fixing up visuals and gameplay across the multiplayer maps.
I worked closely with the art director and lead game designer to change many of the multiplayer maps both
visually and layout wise. I also spent the last several months of development polishing up both the singleplayer and multiplayer maps.

Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway (August 2007 - August 2008)

I had several responsibilities on BIA: Hell's Highway. I was responsible for polishing, optimizing, scripting, visuals, and various gameplay tweaks
for the last level in the game. I also did a lot of work across most of the levels in the game in terms of bug fixing and polishing as well as visual touch ups across different levels.

Personal Unreal Engine 4 projects

The following Unreal Engine 4 videos are something I do as a way to practice and have fun!

Lake Scene

Quick scene I put together in Unreal Engine 4. Scene took me less than 3 hours from start to finish.

Fantasy Scene

Quick fantasy scene I put together in Unreal Engine 4. Scene took me a little less than 4 hours from start to finish.

Valley Scene

Quick scene I put together in Unreal Engine 4. Scene took me a little less than 5 hours from start to finish.

Forest Scene

Quick scene I put together in Unreal Engine 4. Scene took me about 3 hours from start to finish.

Eternity Benchmark

This was a fun personal project I put together to try and test out some of Unreal Engine 4's latest features and to try and push the engine to its limits.Download

Personal Unreal Engine 3 projects

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

This level won first place in the final round of the official level design contest thrown by Torn Banner - Contest Link
The level was designed for 8v8 and 16v16 gameplay and was built for the team objective game mode which has one team completing objectives while the opposing team defends the objectives. This level is now an official part of the game.

Unreal Tournament 3:

This level was made for Unreal Tournament 3. While it will be released with gameplay the level was mainly built for visuals.
Overall purpose of this level was to push my abilities in 3ds max and to experiment with some cool new ideas I had.

This level was created for the popular Community Bonus Pack. Overall at the time of making this map the game had been out
for 5 years so I wanted to really try and push the fidelity of the game to levels that weren't previously possible. At the time
the level was also a way for me to push myself to a higher standard.